


ezequiele

by PersephoneHemingway



Category: 3 Percent (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Ficlet, I have not seen season 4, I repeat I have not yet seen season 4, Mentor/Protégé, Philosophy, Season 3, Stream of Consciousness, The Shell, oop my poetry side is showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersephoneHemingway/pseuds/PersephoneHemingway
Summary: Joana was probably right— maybe Michele was overreaching.
Relationships: Ezequiel/Michele Santana
Kudos: 13





	ezequiele

**Author's Note:**

> there’s a few times in S3 when Joana refers to Michele as 'Ezequiele' as translated by the subtitles, and this is what i wrote in response.  
> i do love me the feminine version of a word  
> yay, implications!

_The Shell._

"Not as easy as it seems, hm? Good intentions are never quite enough."

"Leave me alone."

"You're the one who keeps bringing me back here, Michele."

_Get out of my head!_

&

Ezequiel’s ghost spoke to her.

"It doesn't matter what you believe, if you don't have others believing with you."

"We all make mistakes, Michele. It's about what you do _after_."

_God, save it, why’d he always have to show up with advice? And why do I talk back to him?_

"Such a strong sense of justice... what do you do with it? Are you so sure you're in the right?"

"As if you ever doubted yourself!"

"Oh, I doubted plenty."

"Only after Julia."

"And you, after me. It's natural. You work through it. You work with it.

We all suffer, we all downfall, we all die.

But we can be right, too."

&

He approached her where she sat, looking out over the desert, eyes listless, far away, absently pulling at her shell necklace.

He tapped her with his ankle and leaned back on his other foot, hands in his pockets.

"What's wrong Michele?"

"Joana.. she came to the Shell..."

"And?"

"..She called me _Ezequiele_..."

“And this bothers you?”

Her brooding silence answered.

“Did she have reason to?”

“I- Yes, I… had to stage a Process. To save the Shell. Called it the Selection, but everybody knew what… what it was…”

Ezequiel hummed, waited for her to continue. He watched as frantic energy built up in her before she had to let it go.

“We don’t have enough resources! I didn’t have a choice! It wasn’t permanent— they could— I told them they could come back once we’d rebuilt! But until then…. I had to choose…”

He looked at her only in the way she expected him to.

&

That look in her eyes, that shows her exhaustion. She's spent so long switching sides, listening to others' ideologies and trying to find what's right and she's tired. but making her own isn't so easy. The sandstorm. The founding _trio_. Everything she knew has been twisted and flipped, and— she has a new ideal to try and trust in, but realities always get in the way.

Michele. _A Concha_.

A habitat, a call back to home, sounded, from a breath of fresh air, or no, more of an exhale, from what was taken in and used and expelled— but she found a use, a call, a calling...

When did she become someone who wanted more than revenge for the childhood she lost when her brother left her for the other side, "died" for the other side?

She ran for him through white sheets hanging out to dry, calling, waiting, until she heard he didn't make it, nor would he come back home.

A standstill triggered into a revolution. A purpose, until all that fell over the side as another lie, another pill, another cut, another pail, another dead body. Upside down and dunked.

When did she really start standing, (on her own, _for_ something)— and why?

Was it her? Was it the Old Man and the Cause? The kill? Ezequiel? The revelation? The bargain?

When did she leave her shell, become more than an empty shell, start to _wear_ her shell? Does it matter that it's on her neck now and not her back? Is the weight different now that it's hers? Or is it the same weight— but from the betrayed lover, the idealist, the diplomat— and not the couple who'd sharpened their teeth and doomed the inland to survive?

Who made her soft? Who gave her bite? Who manipulated, who taught, who tricked?

What did she think?

Did it matter, as long as she had the option to choose for herself? To pick an option generations had forgotten was ever there?

Did it really matter to her that in chasing a call she bore names like Andrelé, Samirele, Ezequiele— Michele.

_My Shell_.

_What she made from where she landed, what she took, and what she learned. What she wanted.  
_

Altruism may not be altruism if it's selfish and not selfless— but does it really matter when people are fed?

_What are you trying to prove?_

_Why do you need to prove it?_

_Isn’t your survival proof enough?_

She’s the one still breathing.

Shouldn’t that be for a reason?


End file.
